1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to telecommunications and, in particular, to call party identification. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to regulating calls through a line according to third party criteria.
2. Description of the Related Art
Telephone service has created communication channels worldwide, and those channels continue to expand with the advent of cellular and other wireless services. A person can simply take a telephone off-hook and dial a destination number or press a send button and be connected to a telephone line around the world.
Many businesses provide telephone lines to employees. Use of such lines is typically only regulated by business policies designating the purposes of use of business telephone lines.
In some cases, a business will require each incoming call to be answered by a receptionist so that the name and purpose of each call may be ascertained and recorded before the caller is allowed to communicate with the requested employee. However, more often, a private switching network implemented for handling business lines allows employees to directly receive and place calls. Such private switching networks often utilize sequential phone numbers, such as 412-333-0101 through 0130.
Headhunters are an example of a type of person that a business may not approve of in the business's phone usage policy. Particularly where phone numbers are distributed sequentially, a head hunter may acquire one phone number for an employee within a business and dial numbers sequentially to access other employees. In some cases, a private switching network may be set to block calls from a line number determined to be used by a headhunter. However, just blocking a particular line number does not block the headhunter from calling employees from a different line number. In addition, there may be managers or others who are utilizing a headhunter for searching for new employees.
Calls placed to or received from line numbers other than those line numbers associated with headhunters may also be blocked. However, as with blocking a headhunter line number, simply blocking line numbers does not effectively regulate communications by employees.
Therefore, in view of the foregoing, it would be advantageous to provide a method, system, and program, for regulating phone calls according to the identities of the parties to the call, rather than just the line numbers accessed for a call. In addition, it would be advantageous to apply third party criteria for regulating phone calls received or placed through a line. Moreover, it would be advantageous to redirect regulated phone calls to another department of a business.